Threading chunks of meat and vegetables onto skewers and cooking the food over a grill is a popular method of preparing such food, the skewered food and skewer collectively referred to as a “shish kebob”. Skewers are typically sharpened wooden sticks or metal sticks with a sharp point at one end, and a handle configured as a loop or other flattened, non-sharp design, at an opposing end. The food cooked on a skewer can be eaten directly off the skewer, or removed from the skewer before consumption.
As grilling (or broiling) involves heating food from one side only, it is imperative to pick up and rotate the shish kebob from time to time to ensure even cooking, but the skewer design is problematic: the shish kebob is heavy yet must be rotated by grasping one end configured simply as a skinny stick, or some other small, hard to grasp handle in the case of metal skewers. In particular, reusable metal skewers become extremely hot when placed on a grill, and the tiny handle is very difficult to grasp securely with a bulky oven mitt or other heat protective cloth, much less adequately rotate the shish kebob. The awkward skewer design thus causes the shish kebob to be dropped, have some food chunks fall off by being accidentally pushed off the sharp tip of the skewer by an oven mitt trying to grasp a larger portion of the handle end, and equally annoyingly, the shish kebob often just cannot be rotated exactly as desired due to difficulties created by the skewer design.
Another common problem with the traditional skewer design is that the food on the skewer itself often fails to rotate with the skewer, so even when the skewer is flipped over, some of the food on the skewer does not rotate and hence the uncooked side is still facing upwards and must be manually turned with a fork or other implement. Aside from being annoying, the use of an external fork or other implement can cause cross-contamination of foods because there is a tendency to use the same long-handled fork or tongs to turn over vegetables, chicken, steak, etc., and even if multiple sets of tongs, forks, and other implements are used to avoid cross-contamination, the increased number of tools around the grill or in the kitchen becomes unwieldy and confusing.
What is needed is a hand-held device that is able to easily pick up, rotate, and orient shish kebobs as desired. What is also needed is a skewer compatible with the hand-held device that improves the cooking experience by better securing the food, reduces the risks of cross-contamination, and eliminates the clutter of a variety of cooking implements currently required for safe cooking.